16 Girls, 16 Lessons Learned (Part 1)

As you know, my life has been filled with dating mistakes, and the occasional lucky triumph.

In an effort to come to peace with my romantic life, I decided to sit down and write about every girl I learned something from romantically. Some of these are girlfriends, and some I didn't speak to for more than ten minutes.

All in all, I came up with 16 girls in my life that have taught me important lessons from 4th grade through post-college. Hopefully, reading about some of these will help you remember some of your experiences.

Here are the first three girls along with the lesson learned:

Sarah Lee: Love Hurts

In fourth grade, I had a crush on a classmate named Sarah Lee. Before Spring Break, I convinced her to tell me who she liked, but in return I would have to reveal who I liked. This felt like a win-win situation for me-for she had to know that I was going to tell her I liked her-she must have been setting it up to tell me that she liked me.

I vividly remember meeting her outside school, doing a tightrope walk along the wood borders around a garden while talking to her. There was so much pressure: I had to work up the courage to tell her I liked her, and do it before my parents picked me up-they were on their way. Any failure would mean I had to think about it all Spring Break.

That Spring Break I did indeed have something to think about: I had to cope with embarrassment and pain-- the girl I liked actually liked my best friend (it was the first of many times-he's a really cool guy).

Allison: Mood Makes a Kiss

My first kiss occurred behind a gym with another couple close by. I guess we all needed moral support, considering we were in 6th grade. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with my tongue, but I figured I'd just follow her lead. It was just a few weeks before that I found out that humans practiced the strange ritual of using tongues to kiss.

Right before we kissed I looked down and noticed a slug had made its way on to my shirt. I scooped it up and put it in an adjacent flowerbed, but the entire time Allison's tongue was in my mouth, I thought about that slug...and her tongue felt and moved like a slug.

Somehow I managed to muster the courage for a second kiss a few weeks later. This one was amazing, because we had snuck away during our class camping trip. We were in the woods and all I heard were crickets, my pounding nervous heart, and distant voices of my classmates. I smelled burning wood from campfires, and Autumn leaves, and the kiss was incredible and memorable. My second kiss is the main reason that Autumn is the most romantic season to me.

When I was in 7th grade, I had a little month long stint of phone calls with an 8th grader. She had long dark hair and beautiful eyes. I had written her number on my house phone in silver crayon so that I didn't have to keep looking it up in our directory.

We never became boyfriend/girlfriend and she eventually went to another school. Just a few months ago, I spotted that house phone in my parent's basement with the silver number on it. I took a moment to remember Julia. I'm sure I don't occupy one cell of memory in her mind, but shewill always embody feminine beauty to me. And I recall her when I fear that I'm never going to be attracted to anyone, she helps me remember it is possible.

When did you first realize that love hurts? Do you have any memorable first or second kiss stories? Ever lost out to your best friend? And do you have people in your life that didn't stick around long, but left a huge impact romantically?

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